Terrorism: Then and Now/Home and Abroad

2025 began with a tragic, ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans that serves as a disturbing reminder of the enduring terrorism threat both at home and abroad. Join Jack and Julia as we discuss the evolution of terrorism over the past several decades, and what we should be watching out for today. On this episode, we’ll consider:

• How the threat to the homeland has evolved since 9/11, and the role of US agencies and citizens in advancing our collective security
• The rise and threat of ISIS-K-- the ISIS affiliate group based in Afghanistan that was responsible for the most significant terrorist attacks of 2024
• The differences between lone wolf and coordinated attacks and how the two are connected through global events and borderless ideologies

Transcript

Terrorism: Then and Now/Home and Abroad

Intro

Those of us who tucked in early on New Year's Eve and slept right through the horrific New Orleans terrorist attack as it played out in real time, were met with a rude awakening on New Year's Day. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise, given the number of successful ISIS attacks worldwide this year and a slew of recent ISIS plots against U.S. interests that were thankfully intercepted. But the New Year's attack felt like a tragic flashback to a decade ago, when ISIS was regularly attacking targets in the West. Jack, are we moving backwards? 

Jack

I think that's a very good question. In 2014, I started to write about the fact that I think terrorism is on the decline, not to go away, and certainly hasn't gone away. But nation states would be coming back, as a central theme, I think today we certainly see the nation states playing out in Ukraine, we see it playing out in the Middle East. But what I do believe is true, is we are now beginning to see, as you pointed out and I think many people didn't realize which I hope you elaborate on, is how many terrorist acts there actually have been in the past year or so. There has been a steady flow of terrorist attacks by ISIS. What I'm concerned about today is because of the great instability in the world, this type of terrorism is making its way back. And you mentioned New Orleans, and I think the immediate reaction was, the big question was, is this an isolated event or is it a connected, organized directed by either a nation state or a terrorist group? I think the first reaction was it's a lone wolf. And then it became, they started moving towards the terrorist act and then whether or not it was connected to the Vegas. This is very reminiscent of 9/11, where right after they had an anthrax attack. You had a plane go down. So I think what we're looking at is the slow development. I don't want to start the new year being pessimistic, but the more you see these disconnected ones, the probability of a major event begins to lurk. And I was very concerned that we might have been seeing this. Fortunately, we aren't. But to go to your point, I think terrorism is back in its biggest and ugliest format, which would be a mass event that rocks the rocks the world. 

Julia

 I truly hope you're wrong. 

Jack

 Yeah, so do I. 

Julia

As you mentioned, Jack. Those attacks over the past year have been quite sophisticated- in particular the ISIS attacks. We saw hundreds of people being killed at Iranian General Soleimani's funeral. We saw hundreds of people being attacked by ISIS K in Russia at the Crocus City Hall, the concert hall attack. We've seen attacks in Turkey on churches from ISIS K. And we've actually seen a lot of ISIS K attacks on the Taliban itself. Those are actually at a steady clip. They've had some dramatic accomplishments of suicide bombings of major Taliban officials just over the past few weeks. How, and if, do you see a connection between these ISIS K attacks that are happening, really in the immediate neighborhood of the ISIS K base in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan is involved, and what's happened in a place like New Orleans with a with a lone wolf or seemingly lone wolf attacker? 

Jack

You know, you study this very carefully, and I think it'll be worthwhile for the audience to get an understanding of ISIS K right. So I wonder if, before I answer the question, if you would explain, you know, to the audience.

Julia

ISIS K is the ISIS affiliate group that has a stronghold in South Asia. It is in opposition to the Taliban but still is operating in that sort of political vacuum that remained after the US withdrawal. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan saw an ISIS attack. If you recall, a pretty major one on our own aircraft [attack occurred at the airport gate], and the group is very savvy in terms of its media output. It regularly posts on a lot of the traditional, you know, Telegram channels. It has access to South Asian, to Central Asian foreign fighters, people who feel still disenfranchised, particularly Tajikistan, is a really ready feeding ground for ISIS K. They're sort of one of the remaining…what happened was when ISIS as a greater organization lost the last bit of land in 2019 that it was holding - they held a very significant piece of land there for several years between about 2013 to 2019- and of course, the US and our allies worked diligently to contain that. And we should talk about some of the prisoners being held because of that, but ISIS K sort of had moved and the group had to relocate to South Asia. And that's where we're seeing some of the action today.

Jack

I think this is so important because bin Laden died. It took a lot of air out. It was dying anyway over the years, um, in terms of its influence. But through ISIS K, which is an offshoot and is more focused the way you just described, what the audience needs to be thinking about, it's ISIS trying to be the old ISIS, if you were thinking about it, trying to make a comeback, trying to capture the stage, trying to have impact as a power in the Muslim world, as a moving force for change in its, you know, perverted view of the world. But I think the point that you made both the examples are really horrific, right? The tragedy in Moscow, the theater, I mean, hundreds of people. I think it was over 200. If I'm not mistaken. Soleimani, I have to be very honest, Soleimani was not, uh, I have a hard time getting any sympathy for the head of the former head of the terrorist organization run by the Iranians. He was the head of the IRGC, so that was a big blow. He was the new bin Laden in terms of the hit list as far as the West was concerned. And, uh, there was a very bold strike against Soleimani. And when you move fast forward, there's a ceremony now in Iran honoring him, and you have ISIS. This is where it gets confusing. You have the Iranians with their own version of terrorism, and you have ISIS striking out against them in a ceremony celebrating the life of Soleimani. So I think what we're looking at here, and this is where I think when you start to tie these things together as you're doing, I think you get a sense that that type of major terrorism is lurking out there. So rightfully, we're very focused on the Middle East and Ukraine. But I think that New Orleans is a wake up call that there are events taking place that are not on our doorstep, and therefore we're not it's not registering with us. But it just as could easily have been a theater in the United States as it was, you know, a street in New Orleans.

Julia

I think something significant about the New Orleans attack as well in relation to ISIS K. I mean, just for our listeners, we are in no way arguing that what happened in New Orleans was ISIS K related or orchestrated or anything on that level of sophistication, but it is true that with ISIS K’s victories and accomplishments over the past year, Jack, you know what you just mentioned in several places, major attacks that they are sort of bolstering their status online and on the global consumer level. And the guys and a few women, but mostly men who are looking for that kind of meaning and purpose and solidarity on a global level, when they don't feel it, you know, in their own lives usually…

Jack

I think it's fair to say in that context that, you know, they're using social media very effectively in the sense of getting recruits. They don't bring them into their household and give them identity cards and train them and all this. But they stir up the emotions of so many people that indirectly, they're mobilizing them. What we're talking about today is that next step, when they decide to try and take a particular group and do something with it, I think at some point later on we might want to address what do we do about it…

Julia

Of course, but I have a sensitive question related to the New Orleans attacker and kind of what we're we're dancing around here in terms of either his mental state or his social state or what could drive a lone wolf attack. But I've just noticed, and I've studied and worked on terrorist cases for over a decade, actually in law enforcement capacity, and there's been a lot of commonalities with veterans, actually, and individuals who have previous military experience, how sometimes they seem to be subject or vulnerable to some of these online recruiting efforts in a way that others might not be. And I don't know if it's just a correlation or a causation or what's going on there, but it certainly seems to be a notable, a disturbing and notable trait among some of the Western lone wolf attackers. Do you have any thoughts? It's sort of a statement about our own society, too, not just about what ISIS is doing. 

Jack

It's a delicate subject, for sure. But, you know, hundreds of thousands of young men and women go through the military service, come out and live normal lives and healthy lives. Many come out in, particularly in war zones with issues. Our society's trying to deal with them. Frankly, more should be done. There's never enough that can be done to do this. But when you look at mass societies, you have people that are disturbed and have problems. And when you look at the New Orleans or you look at the Vegas, these are people that disturbed. Where are the, where it crosses? In other words, I don't think it's a necessarily a richer hunting ground. But if you get a seasoned soldier who knows how to use weapons, how to think about using weapons, then it's more dangerous. And then that leads to a bigger event with a lot more concerns. Now, a lot of people have served in Afghanistan, served in Iraq, served in the Middle East. So I still think we're talking about the one off, but it's something to watch. And if you were into recruiting, if you were the head headquarters of the terrorist group, you would say, put as much emphasis as you can to get people that have those skills. So you may see some targeting in that category. So again, I don't think it's because you come out of the military opposed to your system in your government. I think the people today that are in the military go in and patriotically come out patriotic and probably more so. So I think it's maybe focusing and that were just so many of us that, you know, experience these problems. 

Julia

Jack, let's circle back a bit to what was probably the defining moment of Islamic terror for Americans, which was 9/11. And in addition to how that tragedy shaped our foreign policy priorities, can you tell us a little bit about how 9/11 changed the CIA? And then I'd like to get into a conversation with the different ways that the CIA approaches terrorism, with how a domestic law enforcement agency that would be tasked with identifying, like the individual who committed the attack in New Orleans. What happens with the CIA? How did how did they look for terrorists? 

Jack

So these are, Julia,, you're doing it to me again, two huge, huge questions. Hopefully I'll be able to do some... 

Julia

We can start with one. 

Jack

I would say that 9/11, it didn't just change CIA, it changed the world. And I happened to be there at Ground Zero, which if I could reminisce for a second, I was going to a business meeting, and when I was going down the parkway, there were papers flying around the streets, and I was concerned what it was about. But the driver said, oh, it's Election Day. And I said, well, why don't you turn the radio on? Turned on the radio said, well, apparently a plane, a Cessna, this is where intelligence, I mean, information, is really bad … hit the tower and collapsed. My thought was, well, that's tragic. I mean, there's certainly damage to a few people killed. How does this happen? And so I went on with my I was going on to my meeting. I went into the building. The building was shut down. I had no idea what was going on. I went across the street to have a coffee. It was sitting by the window, which is about the last place you need to be at a terrorist event, talking about some inane thing in Brazil. And the next thing, that white cloud came down the street and the person ran in the door, totally covered in ash, yelling, they just blew up Chase Manhattan! So I thought they had blown up something, had blown up Chase Manhattan. And the fact of the matter, I still didn't know that the towers had come down because the fellow was walking by Chase Manhattan. He didn't know the towers had fallen down, so I walked across the street. I almost never carry coins in my pocket. I had a quarter. I put it in. I called my wife and said you won't believe it. ISIS [Al Qaeda] attacked. The terrorists have attacked the towers. One of the towers has come down. They said to Pentagon, at that point your whole mind goes, yeah, it doesn't go blank. It goes back to where, in my case, having been in the intelligence, when did I first hear about, you know, bin Laden and how did it come about. So I had the dubious situation of walking up the FDR for 30 blocks and watching that vacant space in the sky, in a blue sky and thinking about it. I happened to be in London when bin Laden put out a fatwa saying, I'm coming after you. Right. And everybody took it as: yeah, he's coming after us, but that it wouldn’t manifest itself in an attack as horrendous as that was, it was mind blowing. I know I don't want to drag this out too long, but the minute that happened, a lot of things and many, many things changed, right? There was a huge. Oh, you always have. Who was responsible for it and why did it go wrong? All very reasonable things. You should always have an after-action assessment of what went wrong. But we then began to prepare ourselves every type of device that could possibly bring security to buildings. All that was spent, billions and billions of dollars spent. And I think it was helpful. But the core problem was destroying- and this is where I want to come back to: what do you do about it? You go after the perpetrators and you destroy them. We're watching that in the Middle East. I'm 100% behind it. You have to take the fight to them. And it took us a long time to get bin Laden. We were distracted, not distracted. Let me use a different way of addressing this. I still remain. You want to talk sensitive issues? I still am very concerned that we went into Iraq somehow tying into 9/11. And it, from my perspective, was wrong footed and has led to many other issues.

Julia

We’re still suffering the consequences of that in some ways, negative consequences.

Jack

But the point that I'm making. A single big terrorist act can rock, it can rock everything. It can change history. That's why it's done. That's why you have to be- when you see the New Orleans, it's tragic. It's terrible. But what could lurk behind it is history altering developments. So I think that's where we when we look at that's why everyone's so tense about rightfully about is there more behind this? So your second question, unless you want to pick up and straighten me out on this one, the second one is how did CIA change? One of the things that I was very disturbed about. It made no sense to me. Why the administration at that time before 9/11, why they decided to make the international terrorist mission a domestic services responsibility, the FBI. I'm very fond of the FBI, both friends, worked with them, high quality. We've got some issues today. We can leave those aside. But it's not about the FBI. The FBI is responsible for domestic intelligence. They were given the responsibility after the ‘93 bombing. I think that they had to decide who was the lead agency. And I thought, why are you using a domestic group? That should be CIA's core mission. Go find those terrorists abroad. You know the hunting ground. You're in touch with the foreign governments that are actually working, trying to penetrate those groups. So I think. And the Coal. The other thing was the Coal was blown up back then it was a ship and the FBI was the lead agency. That is not a law enforcement issue. And I think for the readers that follow, law enforcement and intelligence know the difference. It's sophisticated. But what I'm saying is terrorism has law enforcement's implication, but at its core, it is really an action intelligence issue, international issue, and you had to put your sources against it. On 9/11, the emphasis shifted. Okay. Fortunately, I don't even know if they discussed it. They suddenly CIA was running around the world trying to find them everywhere they could. And everybody was doing their part. One of the criticisms is not enough coordination between the government agencies, that was improved. I mean, there were some very good things that came out of it, but that was a fundamental change. Is it a law enforcement intelligence issue and how do you get them? And I'm here to say again today that, yes, build up your security and do all the things that you have to do, but you need to go to the hunting ground. In other words, if New Orleans was from an Iranian based mission. Don't putz around wherever it is. Go get it. So I'm not. I sound like someone working the Middle East problem today. So I think your fundamental and first question is yes, I think we need to be much. We need to be really on alert. New Orleans is another ringing of a bell that you rightfully point out has been rung 52 times during the past year. 

Julia

That's right. And I think, Jack, you might agree that to track down these individuals as much as we depend on surveillance and technology and reading through electronic communications and all those things that can be invaluable, that it's a lot more helpful if you have an individual on the inside or a network of individuals who have their finger on the pulse. And what I think about the New Orleans attack and what I'm kind of raising with this issue, which is, we're not really sure if it's just a correlation or whatnot about you return to the United States as a veteran, you might not have the support community that you expected or need to kind of thrive here. That's a separate point, but if the community doesn't have a good relationship or a lot of trust in our public institutions like law enforcement, who's going to tell law enforcement? Who's going to alert them about a threat like Shamsud Jabbar, the New Orleans attacker? I think the public doesn't quite understand that’s a partnership, too, that’s a collaboration. It's not just an interagency collaboration. We all have to kind of be in this together. And I'm not sure that the fabric of society right now is sort of lends itself to that type of human leads and tips.

Jack

I would have put a demarcation line, which I think is critically important, and one is domestic and international and lone wolf versus organized terrorism. Right. So right now what you're describing is what I would call the domestic lone wolf who has been inspired. I think that's the word we now use inspired by foreign terrorist groups. But they basically are lone wolves operating on their own without assistance. Right. So I think you're right, it's very hard. That is like I mentioned this on Bloomberg News. It's a needle in a haystack. It's so hard for law enforcement. It is extremely hard to find. How do you penetrate? You're going to say, well, listen, I want to penetrate the 50 million people in the United States that have mental issues, right? It's like, how do you find that person is so disturbed and what triggers them? It's almost impossible. Your point is, it's a community. Unfortunately, our communities are not the communities of the 1920s, 30s, 40s 50s, and the communities are more, uh, divided, temporary. It's not someone sitting on the doorstep and watching Johnny down the street because he's smoking pot and telling his mother, right. And so it's a much more it's an incredibly difficult problem. But I think I'm not an expert. I do not want to say that I have the answers to this, but our law enforcement is doing a fantastic job now cataloging everyone that has crimes that might be associated with it and handling reports. I mean, they do a phenomenal job. It's a very hard one. So I want to just set that aside. The other side is here. We're talking about an organized group sitting in either somewhere in the Middle East or Southeast Asia plotting to do something in the United States. There's two things I remember in the early days when terrorism was developing and I was involved in it. I had a whole group of people that felt we should do it by ourselves. CIA should do it by itself. We don't need foreigners, right? So one of the big things over the years, and when I got into the counter-narcotics program, was how much we really need foreigners. We need liaison governments. Why you, Julia, with all your talent and language and skill, you're not going to pass in the Middle East, right? You're just not going to do it, right? I certainly am not going to pass anywhere other than what I am. But my point is, you need foreign governments. You need the Israelis. You need the Indonesians. You need the Pakistanis, the Indians. You need the French. You need people that actually are in those communities. In other words, the way you're describing, you need people in those communities who know everything. Bin Laden was living right in the middle of the Pakistani community. The base was far away. He was protected by that community. Right. So your best hope, and in this particular case, we got a tip on it. Right. But if you're doing terrorism, you better have a robust relationship with foreign governments. You need to be forward leaning sharing information. This sounds like oh, that's common sense. It is common sense. But let me tell you, common sense sometimes isn't so common. 

Julia

It’s also difficult to do that. 

Jack

Well there was resistance but no, and I understand what you're saying, but you know you better the they hold the cards on this. You need to do what you have to do. And I find most foreigners that we work with are aligned with us. They don't want that problem either. And then this is where I have to go back to the robust effort and focus. Working with them, you really have to go after the enemy. You can't pussyfoot around. You just cannot. You have to go full, full bore and take them out. There's no half measures and you can only do this. And you can't do that now. Let me be clear. I have very clear ground rules on when to use force and when it's not anything goes. But what I'm saying you don't do is: well, we shouldn't give them this weapon. We should give them that weapon. Maybe, you know, you have to minimize damage and so on, but it has to be measured. But sometimes I find that we are wringing our hands more and slow in taking the action necessary. I don't want to. I think we need to look at the Middle East today. You have to go after them with the vigor that the Israelis are going after their terrorists. So if we were to be hit here, if New Orleans was inspired or not. First of all, there's culpability within being inspired. I want to talk about that. You don't get off free. In other words, if you want, you know, inspiring terrorism in the United States that makes you an enemy. You know, I'm not really inclined to jump to the bargaining table with them right there. They represent a very serious threat to the United States, Iran. But if they did something, then I take I think we take them out to the woodshed. And that's what the Israeli has done.

Julia

I think you could argue two things about what you said, that strike me, Jack. One is that you could argue that we did that- that was our our effort in those many years that we were trying to make sure that ISIS didn't hold that territory in Iraq and Syria and that the ooliyat, these states, these affiliate groups, particularly strong in parts of Africa, which I don't even know if we're going to have time to talk about and ISIS K, how they are this sort of, um, growing a new leg of, you know, a spider or something like that, however you want to envision it. But I also had one other thought before…

Jack

Let me go ahead. Let me put a footnote on that. One of the things that's really important to watch in the Middle East, I wanted to look at that because it's contemporary. You've got to take out the leadership. You have to look why that what that did to Hamas, what it did to Hezbollah, what it did. And in other words, yes, you can fight the group here on this hill and that hill. You have to go right to the core and take it out. 

Julia

Well, we took out Baghdadi. 

Jack

Yeah, well, and I'm saying it isn't that we went from 20 years without great pain, sacrifice and suffering and alot of fun spend on it. But my earlier statement about 9/11 maybe we didn't need to be in Iraq in the first place, and maybe we could have just gone after bin Laden with full force of our might and power and gotten bin Laden earlier. But, you know, it's easy to rewrite history, although I'm on record on this position. So, you know, I might be the Mad Hatter or this, but I really believe that we did a lot of very important things. We're doing it today. I think it's important to mention this, that is where is ISIS? I mean, you were explaining this, maybe explaining the office, I mean, in the office. And where is ISIS K today and what are we doing? My understanding is right now it's a hot issue and we are doing the needful. And I think we should praise our, our government. 

Julia

And there’s been a concerted effort to keep ISIS at bay. Certainly in the Middle East and then in a lot of these affiliate areas, although some of them we are probably not paying as much attention to, and we're not alone in that. You know, there's been a lot of French withdrawals from the Sahel region of Africa, and the Russians have come in to supposedly keep the peace there, but they're just not as effective as a counterterrorism force- for many reasons. So there are these gaps in places where the US has withdrawn for many reasons. I'm not I'm not suggesting that we stay, but there are consequences of these Western exits in certain parts of the world, including Afghanistan. I think you could argue. 

Jack

Terrorism has been knocked on its heels in the last year. I mean, it's really taken a licking. One of my concerns is sometimes when that happens, you get a response that's very forceful and you have to be ready for it. When I think back about when I think back to bin Laden, if we had known when that fatwa came out, what he was going to do, you know, it would have been quite a different world. My point is that today it's easier to cap these if you can cap it off before something happens. In other words, take the actions against this group. Do everything we can. I'm not critical of what we're doing at all. By the by in that context, as far as ISIS K is concerned, we're really trying to take it to them out in the Middle East. So, uh, it's better and every time, what happened if you were watching Hamas and Hezbollah, every time a new leader came up, he disappeared the next day. I mean, you have to have really good intelligence that you have to get from foreign governments that enable you. And with high technology, I don't want to go into that because I'll annoy people. But there's, you know, we have the power. And when we identify them, they have to pay the price. So if you want to inspire people to be terrorists, United States, you know, we should and we are, we're hunting for them and trying to weed out the problem. So early into this fight, if we, if we're correct today that the trend line is heading this way, the more we can do to destroy their growth, their comeback, the better it'll be for us. And there's fear. There's fear on their part, no matter what you think. Right now we're looking at the Middle East and the Iraqis and that are friends of, uh, of Israel today. I mean, look at Iran. They don't want to fight because why? They know what's going to happen the next day. So there's preventive medicine that can be applied, and that is identifying as quickly as you can, identifying and taking strong action against them. So there's so many people that know this. I feel like I'm bringing coal to Newcastle. But there are times in history when our decision makers take courses that seem not to meet my sense of common sense. 

Julia

Thanks, Jack. Just to wrap it up here, I guess we've really, we've touched the surface on both this domestic issue. The international issue. The interplay between the two. And as someone who's very interested in both foreign policy and our domestic security, I just want to express how sort of sad and also damaging it is. I was speaking to the role of community or of our collective desire to have security and kind of feel united as a nation, as a precursor for, for security for us all. And how when attacks like what happened in New Orleans happen, how it actually divides us further-- people become even more suspect of the neighbor who might not look exactly like they do, who might not have spoken the same language they did when they were born or whatever. And how actually preventing domestic attacks is a way to also increase that unity by default. So I think it's more than just the threat of international terror and what, what it does to us, you know, on a physical level, it's also what it does to us on a sort of societal level, which is why it's so essential that we understand that interconnected relationship and work it kind of holistically from all sides. 

Jack

Yeah. I think I think you make a very good point. But I'm leaving that territory to you. I think I'm more comfortable when I'm talking about international terrorism, because that's how I spend most of my adult life. And what I see is, the couple the lessons that we're talking about is, you need to have focus and leadership and all the agencies responsible and the government and how to unite the American people is when you have a threatening organization, if you respond with force. Most of the country’s behind you, right. They're not, you're not going to get in trouble by being strong. You do get in trouble by being weak. And weak isn't the right word. Strong enough is probably a better a better phrase. So I think this is a moment where, you know, it's better to think about it before we get to full blown confrontation with anybody where we're headed. But there are clearly signs in the Middle East today that this is coming back. Old enemy ISIS and a new a new format is headed our way. It's been visible and so on. So we should be focused as part of our foreign policy. I know there's a lot of people that don't want us to get involved in things. Well, if you don't get involved in confronting ISIS K it’s going to be on your, our front doorstep. I just I would leave it on that point. The international part is quite different than I think the domestic part, they interconnect in ways. But I think the remedies are different. The causes are different. But they are, they do interrelate. 

Julia

They present certainly different challenges for identifying, investigating, and mitigating those threats. And I do think, just to second what you said, Jack, I do think that there are constant efforts by our government to thwart these attacks. And we saw a number of successful investigations over the course of the years that never many of them never make the news. So, the efforts, you know, you never get credit when you stop something that nobody knew was even going to happen in the first place, or that you couldn't prove what's going to happen in the first place.

Jack

What you did today, though, which I think is terribly important, is the linkages. In other words, you might see one and then you'll see another, see three. But what many of us don't do is link them, saying, what we're really seeing is a succession of things and a pattern and a plan. And I think that's what you brought to the audience today. If I can flatter you, I know how you get, when you're flattered.

Julia

I’m just glad that we're not on video- my face is bright red.

Jack

Let me assure the audience it is absolutely bright red and flashing. So that was to pay you back for those really two complicated questions. 

Julia

Take care.

Outro

This episode of Straight from the Shoulder has been produced by The Arkin Group in collaboration with Ann Marie Gorden of Merchant.